Bay County jury acquits West Branch driver after a December crash involving a Bay County Sheriff's Office patrol vehicle

THE BAY CITY TIMES
 

June 01, 2009, 8:08AM

Prosecutors allege Amanda L. Jenkins had been drinking alcohol when she lost control of her car on Interstate 75, smashing a Bay County Sheriff's Office patrol car and injuring a deputy.


A Bay County jury, however, acquitted the 22-year-old West Branch woman of drunken driving last week following the Dec. 14, 2008, crash in Monitor Township.  Icy roads, and not Jenkins' 0.11 percent blood-alcohol level - according to a police breath test - helped cause the accident, according to the driver's lawyer, Bay City attorney Jason P. Gower.


"The deputy was sitting in his vehicle, completely stopped in the highway's fast lane," Gower said. "The police vehicle was there because two other cars had lost control on that same stretch of highway and went off the road themselves."  As Jenkins drove north on I-75 near Chip Road, she rounded a curve and crested a ridge, finding Deputy Tom Holtschlag sitting in a sheriff's patrol car on the other side, according to Gower. "(Jenkins) testified that she did see the vehicle's emergency lights," but spun out of control because she was forced to change lanes on icy roads, according to Gower. Bay County Assistant Prosecutor Margaret A. Leaming said last week's trial didn't prove that Holtschlag's car was sitting on the highway.



"The facts - as far as where his vehicle was - were disputed," Leaming said. "I don't think the location of the patrol car was clear-cut. Witnesses said different things on that." Besides, Leaming noted, a breath test done at the Bay County Jail showed Jenkins had a blood-alcohol level of 0.11 percent - higher than the .08 percent constituting drunken driving in Michigan.
Jenkins testified she was driving at a speed of 50 to 55 mph when she lost control on the highway.


"We offered to make full restitution to Bay County, paying for anything out of pocket not covered by insurance," said Gower, noting his client would have accepted responsibility for a civil infraction instead of facing the drunken driving criminal charge.
"The Bay County prosecutor's office has this standard policy, that if you get in an auto accident and there's alcohol involved, they don't make any deal," Gower said.  "But you can't expect citizens - criminal defendants who are presumed innocent - to give up all their constitutional rights, in particular the right to a jury trial, and just plead guilty on the nose."


Deputy Holtschlag suffered whiplash and a hand injury due to the crash, according to Leaming.  "As a general rule, we do not plea-bargain drunk driving cases involving personal injury or property damage," Leaming said. "The deputy was injured here, the patrol vehicle was damaged and there are some drunk driving cases that do not warrant a plea bargain.
"This is one of those cases."


Gower said Jenkins was trying to drive a friend to his Bay County home in the early-morning hours of Dec. 14 when the crash took place. Gower said he believes jurors agreed with his contention that they shouldn't trust results from the 15-year-old breath-testing machine measuring blood-alcohol levels from suspects brought to the Bay County Jail.  "This thing is dirty, it's scratched up and testimony showed it's been in service since 1994 without any parts replaced or repaired. This contraption ... is not reliable, and we raised reasonable doubt," Gower said.

http://www.mlive.com/news/bay-city/index.ssf/2009/06/bay_county_jury_acquits_west_b.html